After just bingeing the Netflix series “The Crown” I fell in love with Kate Quinn weaving the story of Osla, a debutane World War Two codebreaker and girlfriend of Prince Philip of Greece, in two vacellating stories: 1940 and 1947; allowing the reader to see past come to future, and, spoiler alert: Prince Philip doesn’t marry Osla. Three women’s stories are shared: Osla, Mab, and Beth are the codebreakers united at Bletchley Park past (1940), and now (1947) must resurrect their old alliance and crack one last code together before Philip marries Elizabeth.
Kate Quinn is also the author of The Alice Network, which I have not yet read, but it has been recommended to me, and I likely will.
"If you were a man and you wrote funny pieces about daily life, they called it satire. If you were a woman and you wrote funny pieces about daily life, they called it fluff." (Quinn, The Rose Code).
Jenny Lawson is a vulnerable, courageous, and hilarious memoirist. I love the way she openly discusses depression and anxiety, and the hilarious way she does it. There are tough stories there too, but they are honest and brave. Jenny is relatable but eccentric– her life is broken, in the best way possible.
Jenny has written two other memoirs: Furiously Happy and Let’s Pretend This Never Happened and they are amazing for all the same reasons. These memoirs are mirrors for those who struggle with mental health and wellness and windows in to the world of depression and anxiety for those who are reading to learn.
“I can tell you that ‘Just cheer up’ is almost universally looked at as the most unhelpful depression cure ever. It’s pretty much the equivalent of telling someone who just had their legs amputated to ‘just walk it off.’ ” (Lawson, Broken).
On the night of April 19, 1989, a 28-year-old female jogger was brutally attacked and raped in New York’s Central Park. After prolonged police interrogation, five teenagers – Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise (later to be known and referred to as the Central Park Five ) confessed to being involved in the attacks. At the time, the defendants were between 14 and 16 years of age. Yusef Salaam (one of the co-authors of Punching the Air) was tried as a juvenile and convicted of rape and assault. He served seven years for a crime he did not commit. The investigation of the convictions of these five teenagers has raised questions regarding police coercion and false confessions, as well as, the vulnerability of juveniles during police interrogations.
This book is compelling. Written in powerful verse, Zoboi and Salaam take us to in to the heart and mind of a young teenager struggling. Struggling with his decision; one that allowed him to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the inevitable price: to be found guilty of being black. Like Salaam’s own personal story– Amal Shahid, the character in Punching the Air, finds out that “Boys just being boys” turns out to be true only when those boys are white.
The story that I thought
was my life
didn’t start on the day
I was born
Amal takes us in to the juvenile detention center with him, where those in power construct an identity for him: criminal, monster; he is dismissed– because they “know his type.” When he is sentenced, Amal compares his life before this moment to Africa and says, “maybe jail / is America” (p. 61). In “DNA,” he connects the shackles he wears leaving the court to the shackles his ancestors wore (pp. 80–81).
Salaam writes that: “Punching the Air builds on some of the poetry I wrote while I was incarcerated. When Ibi and I started to discuss what kind of story we wanted to tell, we started with a name— Amal, which means “hope” in Arabic. It was important that whatever this teen boy was going through, he should always have hope, and we should write a story that instills hope in readers. It was also important that we make Amal’s mother a prominent figure in his life, in the same way that mine was. While Punching the Air is not my story, Amal’s character is inspired by me as an artist and as an incarcerated teen who had the support of his family, read lots of books, and made art to keep his mind free. Amal has to grow up really fast in a juvenile detention center, just like I did. But in his heart, his faith is strong. Ibi and I wanted people to know that when you find yourself in so-called dark places, there’s always a light somewhere in the darkness, even if that light is inside of you. You can illuminate your own darkness by shedding that light onto the world.”
I have said it before, and I will repeat it: there are so many amazing YA authors writing now. They honor teens as thoughtful, intelligent readers who care about complex issues and ideas– Punching the Air is no exception. If you have a young adult reader in your life, add this to their to be read pile. Then, read it with them.
Always take second chances. This was a novel that got reshelved a long time ago, when I couldn’t see it’s pure loveliness. When I got to the bottom of the books on my nightstand I went searching for abandoned soldiers and uncovered The Elegance of the Hedgehog.
Twelve year-old Paloma simply crushed my heart with her Profound Thoughts 1 through 15, and a final One Last Profound Thought in which she wrestles with her decision to end her life on her thirteenth birthday, having deciding firmly that life is nothing more than a miserable act of futility.
Renee, the frumpy, plump, widowed, concierge is put upon and dismissed out of hand by the inhabitants of the posh five-floor apartment building in the heart of Paris. Exchanges with each of the apartment dwellers serve only to reaffirm what Renee knows; they cannot detect her intelligence, for it doesn’t seem plausible to them. Carelessly, she slips a few clues to her love and keen knowledge of art, philosophy , and music– and Paloma sees her for who she really is, a kindred spirit.
When the arrogant food-critic from the top floor dies, everyone is suprised that the widow is selling, no one has sold an apartment in the 27 years Renee has been in their employ. The new owner is a kind, elegant, Japanese man in his sixties named Kakuro Ozu.
Renee’s expansive reading diet is complimented by an impressive catalogue of Japanese films– in particular ones by a director called Ozu. “Monsieur Ozu. Could it be that I am in the middle of some insane dream crafted with suspenseful, Machiavellian twists of plot, a flood of coincidences, and a denoument where the heroine awakes in the morning with an obese cat on her feet and the static of the morning radio in her ears?” (Barbery, 138).
What unfolds is a delightful and vulnerable unmasking of both Paloma and Renee. Barbery unspools their knots through beautiful prose, translated from her original French, into short and delightful meditative essays back and forth between the two heroines.
I loved every minute with this book, this time. I am so glad I gave it a second chance.
This is a novel that celebrates the gut feeling, the inspired moment when life changes forever because of a gesture, a laugh, a step off the pavement, or even a glimpse of a beautiful flower. A warning, though: This story, like all great tales, will break your heart, but it will also make you realize — or remember– that sometimes the pain is worth it, that there’s also enough beauty in the world, but only if you see beyond yourself.
There are tattoos that people decide to get because they hold meaning to them. There are also tattoos imprinted on people without their consent. Their meaning is beyond the ink that is crudely etched on their skin; lasting reminders of hate.
Martin Luther King Jr., said that: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” This is a story of love that vanquished the darkness.
The atrocities of the Nazis during the second World War are innumerable. Reading this book in the current political climate surrounding us in the United States, it also illuminates the use of dehumanization in the name of hate. Dehumanization is a mental loophole that lets us harm other people; it was present when the Nazis convinced the political soldiers (SS) to conduct unethical medical experiments; physical and mental torture; and worst of all, mass genocide. How we judge others and make inferences about them is fundamentally a social process. Dehumanization is the same tool Trump used throughout his presidency to explain away treatment of immigrants; banning of Muslim travellers; his misyoginst remarks about women; or just a general mailgning of anyone in opposition to him.
The Tattooist at the heart of this story saw the human person in everyone he encountered. Tasked with placing an identifying tattoo at prisoners arriving in Auschwitz, he tried to be as gentle as he could and when his job brought him priviledges, he shared them with the friends he had made in the camp. He falls in love helping a young woman in the camp– and theirs is a remarkable love story that champions against all odds.
